Readers have just finished raving about last year’s event and what do you know, it’s time for the Third Annual Antique Trader Favorite Finds Contest. This contest has grown during the last two years to become our most popular issue of the year; more than 45 stories were submitted for the 2010 contest and the issue sold out within a week!

Last year’s winner wrote how a $700 auction find turned out to be a $38,500 bracelet decorated in rare sapphires. Fan favorites involved a Roycroft book collector, a junk shop find that ended up at Sotheby’s and a Davey Crockett Tooth Brush purchased for just 9 cents that later sold for $103.

Starting July 1 through Sept. 30, you may submit your own stories of auction scores, heartwarming yard sale surprises or antiques show discoveries.

Since your stories keep getting bigger and better, so has this year’s prize. This year’s winner will receive the Antique Trader Field Survival Kit! To include:

Contest runs July 1 to Sept. 30, 2011

A backpack

A 10x jeweler’s loupe

A copy of Antique Trader’s Guide to Fakes and Reproductions

Tape measure

Sunblock

Business card wallet

Commemorative Antique Trader iridium point fountain pen

Nationwide road map

A mini notebook with penholder

A $50 gas card

A rain poncho

A travel-size first-aid kid

To help you study up on all your treasures we’re also awarding a free subscription to Antique Trader and a 10-volume reference library from Krause Publications.

The best part of the contest is that all responses (great and small) will be published in the Nov. 16 edition of the magazine. This valuable keepsake will be sent to all subscribers and digital versions will be available for sale on Shop.Collect.com.

Participants are free to enter as many times as they wish; each submission must be an original story. Each submission must include the author’s full name, hometown and state and a telephone number or e-mail address. Read the official rules here.

Send your entries by Sept. 30 to Antique Trader Favorite Finds, 700 E. State St., Iola, WI 54990 or to ATNEWS@fwmedia.com or eric.bradley@fwmedia.com. If sending by e-mail, please include the words ‘Favorite Finds’ in the subject line of your message.

Good luck to you all and may the best find win! ?

– Eric Bradley, Editor

To get you in the mood to share your story, here’s one reader’s tale of digging for treasure to her heart’s content:

One collector gives up the hunt to spare the garage

I always enjoy your magazine! I especially enjoyed the Favorite Finds. I thought to get on the bandwagon, too with what I think is an interesting find.

Busy with four children, my mind was wrapped around them. Finally they were all in school, …. and the different finds they found. I thought I’d see what I could maybe dig up.

When we moved here I could remember (8 to 10 years ago at that time) seeing bottles and green Ball jars filled with tomatoes and green beans (the kind you’d use to can tomatoes or green beans) sticking up from the ground near our garage. Through the years, from hard rains and maybe the rotation of the Earth, those jars sank down from the edge of my yard. So I had to dig.

I found some delightful old things thrown out by the previous owners of our home: China pin cushion dolls with the cushion long rotted off but the dolls in perfect condition with painted hair and a kiss of blush on the cheeks and lips.

I found a little white crock, a 1-quart jug with a cork closure, doll dishes and even dolls with perfect eyes. There were two apothecary bottles, one brown and one aqua green. I could go on and on. In those days there was no garbage pickup so every one had a ‘dump’ on their property. So this is what I found – even whisky and wine bottles – just to get some of those jars.

At 88 years old, I’d still like to go out and dig some more. I’ve had to quit because my husband was afraid that with all the earth moving away, his garage would soon go, too!

We have the garage yet but I’m afraid now of going over the hill and working on that bank. I spent many days and hours volunteering at our local museum fixing different displays with what I found.

I still like to collect and enjoy the many writeups in your antiques magazine. Catherine Zimmerman Martins Ferry, Ohio